cooleylawstudent

BULL! Here's the only rankings that count! You here that Berkeley, you suck!

Judging the Law Schools - Overall Rankings 2008 SCHOOL 2008 2007 Harvard University 1 (1) Georgetown University 2 (2) New York University 3 (6) University of Virginia 4 (4) University of Texas 5 (3) University of Michigan 6 (9) Northwestern University 7 (5) Columbia University 8 (7) Yale Law School 9 (George Washington University 10 (11) University of Minnesota 11 (9) Thomas M. Cooley Law School 12 (16) Fordham University 13 (15) University of California-Los Angeles 14 (13) American University 15 (14) University of Pennsylvania 16 (12) University of California-Hastings 17 (18) Stanford University 18 (19) University of Maryland 19 (29) University of California-Berkeley 20 (17)

Loyola Law School 21 (23) Temple University 22 (25) Brooklyn Law School 23 (20) University of Wisconsin 24 (21) Boston University 25 (22) University of Miami 26 (27) Duke University 27 (24) Washington University 28 (30) Chicago-Kent College of Law 29 (28) University of Houston 30 (26)

University of Chicago 31 (38) Emory University 32 (44) University of Connecticut 33 (36) University of Iowa 34 (32) Suffolk University 35 (39) Indiana University-Bloomington 36 (37) SMU Dedman School of Law 37 (40) Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law 38 (43) Boston College 39 (31) Ohio State University 40 (40)

University of Alabama 41 (51) Seton Hall University 42 (35) Vanderbilt University 43 (57) University of North Carolina 44 (38) Cornell Law School 45 (34) Catholic University 46 (59) Tulane University 47 (42) University of Illinois 48 (41) University of Denver 49 (63) University of San Diego 50 (49)

cooleylawstudent

Isn't that kind of like saying if you can't date a supermodel then who cares who you wake up next to? Gotta tell ya man, I'd rather wake up next to #25(unemployed but still hot and only one kid) vs #100(300 pounds, still commonlaw married to a felon named "leeroy" and her livein adult son watching this whole time yelling an odd mix of insult and encouragment).

Yea rankings are the most important thing I see that Gonzaga and Maine are no longer in the top 100 and I heard the all the professors immediately turned into flesh eating zombies. Then Everyone that ever graduated from those schools was immediately fired and had their membership to the bar revoked. That is just how important the rankings are.

I also like how they give 10 schools the same rank. 5 ranked #98, 5 schools ranked #93, 6 schools ranked #86, 6 schools ranked #80, only 2 ranked #78, 6 ranked #72, 5 ranked #67, 3 ranked #68, 4 ranked #60 and the list continues at least the Cooley rankings have the balls to give each school a number even if it is based on how many chairs each school has at least you can measure that.

The sheer ridiculousness of the rankings amazes me it is the most brilliant scheme of all time. U.S. News just came up with a ranking based on a formula which makes absolutely no sense. It is about 80% based on pure subjective feelings of unidentified individuals. If you look at the formula the most importatn consideration that any law school has is the LEAST important in the U.S. news rankings and that is bar passage rate. The bar passage rate makes up %2 of a schools U.S News ranking. So a school could techncially be number #1 in the U.S. rankings and have a 0% bar passage rate. Since bar passage makes up only %2 of your ranking. Really take a second to look at how U.S. News comes up with the rankings it is amazing how idiotic the formula is. As a result of it being so stupid every official law school organization. ABA, LSAC, AALS all adamantly refuse to acknowledge the rankings and have given nothing, but their utter disapproval of the rankings and each of their websites has a disclaimer on saying ignore the rankings, because they are irrelevant.

Common sense will tell you Harvard is a better school than Williamette, I hope if you are considering law school you are smart enough to know that. However, distinguishing between Florida International University and California Western really does not matter. Honestly, to anyone considering law school do not take these rankings seriously. Use common sense when choosing your school of course, but do not base your decision on these idiotic rankings. Especially since they will change dramatically every year you can be a tier 2 one year then a tier 4 the next. USF has made another drastic drop I see although they made a drastic rise last year. To show the complete unpredictability (unreliablity) of the rankings look at USF's rank over the last 4 yeras years in 2008 They were 72 in 2009 they went to tier 3 which means 100-something in 2010 they went to 78 I think and now they are to 98. That is just one example of how unpredictable and unreliable the rankings are. I can't imagine what has really changed at USF over those 4 years to warrant that kind of deviation, but I am sure nothing changed at all. U.S. News is just a complete joke and really don't take them seriously.